Polish court to rule if law allows Roman Polanski to be extradited to US

Warsaw: A court in Poland is expected to rule on whether Polish law allows for the extradition of filmmaker Roman Polanski to the US where he is wanted for having had sex with a minor in 1977. A one-judge panel in Krakow is to hear lawyers for Polanski and for the US side on Friday before making its ruling. The Oscar-winning Polanski, 83, was in Krakow but did not appear in court. [caption id=“attachment_485335” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Roman Polanski. Getty Images.[/caption] The verdict will be subject to appeal within seven days. Postponement of the final ruling may lead toward an extradition, as the new Law and Justice party government to be installed this month makes a point of applying law strictly and equally to all. Poland’s former justice minister on Thursday said he backed Polanski’s extradition. Zbigniew Ziobro, a close ally of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party that won Sunday’s general election, said, “Paedophilia is an evil that must be pursued.” “We should allow Polanski’s extradition. We can’t shield anyone from taking responsibility for an act as despicable as abusing a minor.” Kaczynski himself said earlier this month that he “rejected the idea of pardoning someone simply because he is an eminent, world-renowned director.” The United States filed the extradition request in January. The director of The Pianist, Chinatown and Rosemary’s Baby faces sentencing there for raping Samantha Geimer after a photo shoot in Los Angeles when he was 43. He pleaded guilty at the time to unlawful sex with a minor, or statutory rape, avoiding a trial, but then fled the country fearing a hefty sentence. He now lives in France. US officials have regularly pressed for his extradition, to no avail, and tried to have him arrested when he travelled to Warsaw for the opening of a Jewish museum in October 2014. Polanski, who has testified in person in the hearings, has said he doubts the extradition application will be granted but he will comply with the legal proceedings. Polish prosecutors argue there are legal grounds for the extradition to go ahead, despite a statute of limitations on child sex crimes under Polish law. Polanski, who became a French citizen in 1976 after moving to France from Poland, is currently working on a new film about France’s Dreyfus Affair. The case featured an army captain wrongly convicted in 1894 of espionage and treason whose ordeal became a symbol of injustice and anti-Semitism. Geimer wrote a book about her encounter with Polanski in 2013, in which she said she was made to drink champagne and was given a sleeping pill before being raped by Polanski in the house of actor Jack Nicholson. The mother-of-three wrote in The Girl: A Life Lived in the Shadow of Roman Polanski that she harbours no hate for Polanski and has forgiven him. With inputs from AP and AFP